Still here. . .

. . . Just not been up to posting anything lately.  Apologies for the long absence friends.  Life has been fairly stressful lately and that, coupled by a wee break to Spain, hasn't had me in the frame of mind for blogging or painting lately.

Things haven't actually turned the corner yet, but I'm at the point now where there's not much to actually do, just a case of waiting for things to happen.  Realising that, I'm actively working to get into a settled routine and resume doing the things that make me happy.  That sounds a bit flakey, I know, but hey, that's how I've been feeling lately.

Still a bit of gaming going on.  Had a few games of Netrunner this week; still my favourite game full stop at the moment, just wish I was a bit better at it!  Also had another outing for Dreadball the week before. Still oodles of fun, but I want to try another team for variety; robots, bugs or rats.  Can't decide.

Naturally, some retail therapy has been needed lately and I picked up two boxes from Fantasy Flight Games; the Elder Signs expansion; Unseen Forces and the new Star Wars RPG beginner box.  The RPG looks very entertaining, it's based on the WFB system (which I've never played) and has a ingenious dice pool system.  The artwork and writing are top notch too.

Frustratingly, I've not tried out the Unseen Forces yet.  The box FFG have used for the expansion is slightly too small for the cards Elder Sign uses, meaning that the large cards are all bent out of shape.  They've spent the last two days under a pile of the heaviest books I have, trying to straighten them out.  Still, reading the rule sheet, the expansions seems to add a welcome degree of difficulty to Elder Sign and the new Blessed and Cursed dice seem fun.

After moving house last month, I've managed to create a little space for modelling and painting.  No painting done yet, but I have managed to finish basing my 28mm Viking warband for Saga (wow, reading back I'd planned to have these finished in May.)  Hopefully I'll get these undercoated over the weekend, providing the rain eases up.

Lastly, we're finally getting to try out In Her Majesty's Name at the club next week.  Sholto has been beavering away creating factions for us to use.  Looking forward to it, pics if I can take anything decent.

A Quick Update

Hello peeps.  Sorry for the recent inactivity on the TMFT, but things have been fairly busy lately and not left a lot of time for blogging!  Short story; being single for the first time in sixteen years is taking some getting used to!

First things first, a big thank you to Tamsin for her recent giveaway.  Her generosity means I've now another nine spaceships from GZG added to the painting pile.

This week, we finally managed to squeeze in a couple games of Dreadball.  I'd delegated painting the box set to Adam from the club.  He'd obviously thoroughly preparing himself for the task as they've, as yet, no actual paint on them.  I'm sure he'll do a great job though. . . . . . eventually.

To the game itself.  I'd had a read through of the rules before we played, but couldn't honestly remember much at all. Adam guided me through the first game and, although we made a fair few mistakes, were impressed enough to have another game.  The core mechanic is success based dice rolls (aim to roll more successes than your opponent) as opposed to rolling a higher dice score than your opponent.  There are several skills and stats you roll against, usually with three dice, but with a lot of modifiers.  A bit confusing at first, but once you get the mechanic, the game becomes massively enjoyable.

It's generally a good sign of a game when halfway through your first play, you're already thinking "I'm going to buy this and this next week."   We played one game each with the two starter teams, but both games generally dissolved into the Orx player thumping the humans at every opportunity.  Great fun.

I also sat in on a game of Bolt Action, hosted by Tom and a couple others (whose names escape me just now.)  I've read the rules and have a couple of the supplements, but haven't gotten it to the table myself yet.  My biggest concern was the random activation sequence (blindly drawing dice from a bag,) in that I worried that tactical decisions would be overruled by unlucky dice draws.  Based on the game I saw, that doesn't seem to be a concern.  I've some 28mm Soviets in storage so I'll try and get a few painted up in time for a game.

Lastly, away to Spain for a week next week.  The old man has taken pity on me and paid for a wee break there (it helps that he owns a house there.)  Nothing planned except some reading and relaxing, but I do fancy a day trip to Cartagena for a wander round the Roman ruins.  So, if nothing appears here for another week or so, you can assume my pasty Scottish skin is getting gently roasted by the sun!  Have a good week everyone.